Our neck provides a substantial support to our body and protects the upward and downward transmissions of our basic biological movement messages and nutrition. As our working pressure increases, the pace of our living becomes faster; as computer networks are well developed, neck diseases jeopardize our body and seriously affect our living and work. As indicated in researches, more than 70% of the people with an age of 60 or over has neck diseases or injuries to some extent, and the average age of these patients tends to be younger and younger.
For patients having a neck disease or patents still having a neck problem after performing surgical operations, a neck brace is usually worn on the patient's neck for neck tractions as disclosed in R.O.C. Pat. Publication No. 354254 entitled “Physical therapy device for herniated nucleus pulposus or sprain and injury” and U.S. Pat. No. 4,881,529. However, the foregoing traditional patented neck braces are fixed to a patient's neck and its height for supporting the neck cannot be adjusted flexibly. Since the diameter and length of each patient's neck vary, the neck brace must come with different sizes and specifications to meet the requirements of different patients, and thus causing tremendous inconvenience to manufactures for the production and inventory of the neck braces.
R.O.C. Pat. Publication No. M277433 entitled “Improved neck band” discloses a neck band to overcome the shortcomings of traditional neck bands that cannot flexibly adjust the supporting height. The improved neck band includes a height adjusting plate surrounded around a circular plate for adjusting the height of the neck band, and a lining pad is coupled separately on the internal sides of both circular plate and height adjusting plate, and the circular plate is worn around a patient's neck, characterized in that a half portion of the circular plate is provided for connecting the height adjusting plate, and the middle portion of the circular plate includes a groove and a plurality of limit protrusions and elastic latch points disposed evenly on both sides of the groove. Both sides of a propping portion at the middle of the height adjusting plate include a plurality of slide tracks corresponding to the limit protrusions and operating together with the elastic latch points of the circular plate, and a plurality of fixing holes disposed successively from top to bottom. With the foregoing structure, the height adjusting plate can be fixed onto the circular plate by connecting the slide tracks and the circular plate, and the height of the neck band can be adjusted by moving and changing the height of the slide track. However, such arrangement fixes the elastic latch points into the fixing holes, so that when a user wants to adjust the height of the height adjusting plate, the user has to remove the height adjusting plate from the circular plate and then latch the elastic latch points after a desired height is selected, so as to install the neck band onto the user's neck. Users have to repeat the operations for several times before the neck band is adjusted to an appropriate height, and thus making the use very inconvenient. Further, the design of the latch connection is not secured enough for the installation of the neck band onto a user's neck, and it is difficult to maximize the effects of the device of this sort.